The Doctor's Reform
by SickoLady
Summary: Doofenshmirtz is captured by headquarters, and tortured for information concerning the location of the other evil doctors. His ex-wife believe it or not is the one to save him.
1. Foiled Again

Greetings anonymous Internet goers. I wrote this story for me 'cause I'm totally crushing on Doof right now. He's definitely my favorite evil doctor of all time.

Yea, so for those of you that don't know me, (that's the majority of everyone I recon) I'm a total perve, and my friends, it is safe to assume that the story below is going to reflect that. Uh...let's rephrase that so you can't miss it: **THIS STORY IS PERVERTED GARBAGE **(erm...contains graphic violence and sadomasochistic undertones)

So now that that's out of the way...enjoy! ;D

**The Doctor's Reform**

It was a terrible day for filing papers, and Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz just wasn't in the mood for it. Of course filing papers is always a terrible activity, it hardly matters what day it is. Filing papers is terrible everyday. It's terrible during a thunderstorm, and during a tornado-in the rain, on a plain, in a box, with a fox...well, you get the picture. Filing papers is always terrible and Dr. Doofenshmirtz didn't feel like doing it. Not one bit.

He looked down at a collection of records that he had spread out on the desk in front of him (for the purpose of more convenient filibility). He could have easily spread them out across three additional desks of equal size, but didn't bother with this for two reasons:

reason one: He didn't feel like it.

reason two: If he where to do this then he would probably discover enough papers to occupy a fourth desk and that would just be depressing.

He slammed his face down onto the desk in frustration, injuring his large nose on its wooden surface.

"Ow!" he shrieked indignantly rubbing the tip of his villainous nose. "Well I'm just angry now."

He though this over for a moment, observing the vast pile of relentless papers, and then swept them into a pile and pushed them over the edge of the desk into a cardboard box that was on the floor next to the useless-inator (a little experiment that Heinz had been working on that had never quite worked out).

"Organising thing is overratted!" Doofenshmirtz shouted triumphantly, eyeing the garbled pile of obnoxious papers with distaste.

He turned around. There was a green platypus standing there for some reason.

"Perry the Platypus!" the evil doctor announced in his usual fashion, throwing his arms up into the air for dramatic effect. "I'm sorry to disappoint you but I don't have any evil plans going on just yet...you see...I had been attempting to organise these papers...but have just given up-so yea I guess its time for have an evil plan now."

Dr. Doofenshmirtz pushed a button and a large cage sprung from the sealing, falling on Perry the Platypus, and leaving him trapped, as usual forced to listen to Doogenshmirtz's idiotic new plan.

"I have created a new inator which is sure to make me erm..." Heinz paused he couldn't seem to come up with any terrible puns to thematically fit the situation. "I really great and cool guy, by which I mean a guy who's really cool...but also...you know...great-anyways, my newest inator is called the "Inator-inator" it is an inator that spontaneous produces inators, thereby making it impossible for you to destroy them all."

Garry the Platipus narrowed his eyes sceptically.

"Oh COME ON it's gonna work this time...I just push this red button...and..."

The large, complicated, machine spontaneously exploded, leaving the doctor ashen-faced and staring at the blackened mess in front of him with a shocked and dumbfounded expression.

"OK, so that didn't work," said Doofenshmirtz defeatedly. His eyes narrowed with irritation. "So I guess I'll fill you in on that other stuff I was doing...you know since I have no one else to talk to."

The platypus didn't look the slightest bit amused, but he was quite literally a captive audience so he didn't have much choice but to listen anyway.

"Yea, so, anyway, I was organising this big pile of paper. They're mostly, I don't know, my arrest records, and newspaper clipping about stuff I wasn't arrested for and stuff like that. The deed to my house is in here somewhere...the divorce paper that where never officially officialesed...my ex-wife'll want those...and um my free credit report from free credit report dot com. Yea, my credits bound to be pretty awful so I'm not looking forward to finding that."

Perry the Platipus rolled his eyes.

"Ugh...I wouldn't expect you to understand," said the doctor collapsing against his desk once more. All of that "organising" had made him rather tired, and he swiftly fell a sleep.

...

Perry the Platypus was quite adept at freeing himself from traps. He was so good at, it in fact, that Dr. Doofenshmirtz no longer bothered to make his traps very complicated, or difficult to escape from.

The cage that Perry had been trapped in wasn't actually locked, and Perry found that the cage door swung open easily with minimal effort on his part.

Heinz was still asleep. His hunched figure rose and fell with his labored breathing. His face was buried in the crook of one of his bony arms, and he was snoring loudly. He could have been faking it, but he wasn't. Perry was quite confident of that. He knew Heinz good enough to know that his fake snore was far less obnoxious than his real one.

"_Jeese, Doofenshmirtz_," thought Perry sarcastically as he observed the sleeping doctor. "_For some one who's a genius you really are an idiot_."

"...Cha...Charlene," whimpered Heinz between snores. "Charlene...I..."

Perry averted his eyes. He had never seen a sleeping man look so depressed, and it felt almost obscene to watch. That damned evil scientist was much of a threat really. He just always seemed to be making a nuisance of himself. Headquarters was getting sick of him. Which, Perry supposed, was the reason that they wanted him quarantined.

Perry supposed that it was for the best. They could put this lunatic in a rubber room where he would never be able to hurt himself or any one else ever again. It was an excellent idea, really. Perry was surprised that they hadn't thought to do it before...and yet...he couldn't help but feel a little bad for the poor guy. It didn't feel right having to cuff him while he was asleep like this, practically sniveling over his ex-wife.

But Perry the Platypus had a job to do. Heinz Doofenshmirtz may have been sentimental, but he was far from safe. Despite his recent depression-based lack of enthusiasm, he really was rather intelligent, and he was more than capable of bringing the entire tri-state area under his evil influence. After all, how did someone who was unemployed afford a sky-scrapper and a blimp? You could only charge so much to your ex-wife's credit card.

The Platypus sighed, and snapped the handcuffs closed over Heinz's wrists as he slept. Headquarters had set up an unnecessarily elaborate plan in anticipation of the scientist's capture, but it was even less necessary now. There was a teleportation device attached to one of the cuffs that hung loosely around the sleeping doctor's narrow wrists. It looked like a tiny green button with the word "teleport" written on it.

Perry pressed the button with one of his green platypus paws, and the doctor was instantaneously teleported to headquarters. Perry hoped that they would be kind to him.

(I'm going to keep writing this story until its finished and/or my obsession with this damn cartoon goes away. Eventually it'll be rated M, because, you know, its bound to deteriorate into porn at some point. SickoLady out.)


	2. Not Related

I wasn't sure weather to list this as a "comedy" or a "tragedy". I mean it does have some comic elements to if, but its also obviously a tragedy because of the torture element. Eh, what ever.

I did a little research on government torture. You probably won't be able to tell, but...you know...at least I tried.

**Chapter 2**

Charlene had been divorced for years, and it hadn't been easy finding a new man. Not that it was her fault, she had had a young daughter, and nothing is a bigger turn off than "Oh yea, and by the way, I've got a kid." However, Vanessa was older now, and going off to live at college.

Charlene had made of habit of disguising her daughter's room as "a guest room" when ever one of her potential lovers came to visit, replacing the dolls on the shelf with decorative plates, and the posters on the wall with paintings of fruit. The room still had a suspiciously gothic quality to it, but that suited Charlene's purposes just fine.

Once Vanessa had shown up for a surprise visit while Charlene was with one of her boyfriends. Charlene had told him that Vanessa was the maid, which had annoyed Vanessa a great deal, especially since she had just walked in on her mother having sex with some strange dude in her (Vanessa's) own bed. Then said strange dude, had suggested Vanessa join in a threesome, and Vanessa had screamed and fled from the room.

"Sorry about, Lupe," Charlene had said in explanation. "She doesn't speak very good English."

Perhaps "Lupe's" English was too good, in any case that became the general pattern of things. Charlene kept seeing different boyfriends, who would inevitably find out about her daughter, and when they did Charlene would tell them that Vanessa was not her daughter. No, she was Lupe, the Spanish maid. She didn't speak English, and she was in no way related to Charlene in anyway what so ever.

Vanessa was "Lupe" to the mailman, and "Lupe" to the Pizza-delivery guy, and "Lupe" to the the stock clerk at Walgreen's. She was "Lupe" to the gardener, and "Lupe" to the homeless guy who lived under the bridge. She was just "Lupe!"

OK, so maybe it wasn't the kind of scenario that should be referenced in a mother's day hallmark card, but it worked. So whatever. Charlene enjoyed her sex life very much, and she didn't feel as though she aught to give it up just because she was also a mother. Vanessa was an adult now, and Charlene needed her own life.

But Charlene's "sleeping around" days where coming to an end. She had a steady boyfriend now. His name was Howard, and he worked for the military, apparently. What precisely he did for the military was never exactly discussed, but that was fine by Charlene. If he could believe that her 18-year-old daughter was really a Spanish maid named Lupe and wasn't actually related to her in anyway what so ever, then she could believe that he_ didn't _break the U.S. constitution every day by torturing political prisoners for information. Relationships are built on lies.

Howard's career wasn't exactly a closely guarded secret, Charlene just chose to ignore it. It was much better that way. For both of them. Well, at least, that's the way she felt about the situation. Howard seemed to feel a bit differently. He was always trying to "bring his work home with him" (so to speak) in their discussions.

"Have you ever heard of medical torture?" he had asked her once.

"No, and I don't want to. So don't say another word," said Charlene.

"No it's really interesting. Really," insisted Howard and he continued as though there had been no interruption. "They employ the use of medical professionals to make interrogation procedures safer, and there by keeping the subjects alive longer, and under more violent conditions."

"Ugh. That sounds perfectly dreadful," said Charlene.

"It's not," insisted Howard. "It's more practical and more humane. Terrorists don't die, and are more likely to offer us information under pain of torture. For example, water boarding. Terrorists used to die when they where water boarded, but then they had some medical staff do experiments on the victims to find out what was killing them, and it turned out-"

"Stop it Hein-I mean-_Howard,_" said Charlene. "I don't want to hear about this."

"-It turned out that the massive amounts of fresh water being ingested into their bodies was giving them low saline blood levels. So the doctors just switched the fresh water with a saline solution," explained Howard. "Less deaths. More torture. Everybody wins. Personally, I think that medical torture is a really good idea...What do you think Charlene?"

"Uh...," began Charlene. She wasn't exactly sure how she felt about this. "I suppose it's an OK idea, but not a great dinner conversation. And um...Lupe won't want to hear about it. She's a bit sensitive about the issue."

At the time Howard and Charlene where sharing what was supposed to have been a romantic dinner, while Vanessa ate her dinner in the adjoining room. She had been flipping through her Spanish-English dictionary, picking up new phrases to make her act more convincing. But during the course of Howard's little rant about water torture, she had stopped. The the sound of the dictionary's pages being turned faded to silence. Her posture became ridged.

"But I thought you said that Lupe doesn't speak English," said Howard.

"Oh that's right!" replied Charlene quickly. "She doesn't! Carry on then."

"OK," continued Howard. "So there's a lot of research being done about the ways in which we can make torture more effective, more specifically adaptable to the individual, if you will. We've even gone so far as to interview the families of captives, in order to identify the weaknesses of individual captives and more easily exploit them."

Charlene liked to believe that Howard was a decent person, and she usually managed to convince herself that he was...but tonight there was something in Howard's expression that was positively..._horrific._

"I don't like where you going with this," said Charlene, and suddenly she didn't feel very much like eating.


	3. Phobia

Hey, thanks for the reviews guys :D I love it when people care enough to comment on my storytelling. That's probably why I'm so addicted to this website.

I watched my first ever episode of "Phineas and Ferb" about a week ago and completely fell in love with it. Since then I've become something of an aficionado. (Seriously you guys ask me anything ;D ) One of the things that I found interesting about the series was Doofenshmirtz's relationship with his daughter and his ex-wife. It was an extremely minor side plot, but still a pretty mature topic for the cartoon's target audience. In the episode "Hail Doofania" we learn that Charlene doesn't know (or possibly pretends that she doesn't know) about Heinz being an evil scientist. Which leaves us with the question: "Why did they break up?" The series never provides us with a satisfying explanation. Also, there's an episode where Charlene mentions that she never changed her name back from Doofenshmirtz. I don't know what you think, but I'm betting that you have to be a little bit more than sentimental to keep a name like "Doofenshmirtz". I thought it might be interesting to explore the nature of their relationship a little with this story.

**Chapter 3**

Heinz wasn't quite sure where he was. All he knew was that it was a small, windowless room with grey walls. There was a large mirror mounted on the wall beside a locked door, but besides that the room seemed to be entirely empty.

He looked down at his hands and saw that they were shackled together. Why were his hands shackled together? His heart began to race with panic and he stood up quickly, falling over, and scraping his chin against the cement floor.

"Curse you Perry the Platypus...," whimpered Heinz, cradling his wounded face and blinking back the tears that had gathered in the corners of his eyes.

He rolled onto his back and observed his feet, realising with a fresh pang of horror that they were shackled as well. He rolled back onto his stomach and began inching toward one of he walls like a worm. It took him at least five minuets to do this, but he figured it was worth it to be able to rest his back against something.

After awhile he managed hoist himself into a sitting position against the wall opposite the mirror, and that ominous, locked, door. He could see himself reflected in the mirror's surface, trembling slightly, as he hugged his knees to his chest. He put his head down so that he wouldn't have to look at himself.

During the course of his life, Heins he had experienced a lot of really shitty things among them, one sided love, abysmal failure, and severe pain, usually as the result of his own clumsiness. But this was without doubt the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Where was he and what the hell was going to happen to him? He began to cry...because deep down he knew the answers to both of those questions.

...

"It's one-way glass," said Howard, tapping the large, metal framed window behind his desk.

"I can see that," said Charlene.

Her expression was a mixture of pity and horror, as she observed the shattered continence of her ex-husband through the one-way glass. He was trembling, and tears where pouring out over his cheeks in steady streams. Judging by the way he was opening and closing his mouth, it was safe to assume that he was bawling loudly.

"What did you do to him?" she asked, and her voice came out in a horrified whisper.

"I haven't even touched him yet," said Howard very manner-of-factly.

"But he's crying...," crooned Charlene sympathetically.

"He's probably just afraid," said Howard waving the issue aside as insignificant. "I wouldn't make you watch the real thing...not unless of course...you _wanted_ to."

"Don't be disgusting, Howard," snarled Charlene. "...I still can't believe that, of all people, my ex-husband is a threat to national security."

"Yes, well...he has weapons of mass destruction _so..._"

"Let's just get this interview over with so that yo with your damn research."

"OK," agreed Howard and he removed a few official looking documents from one of his desk drawers, placing them in front of Charlene so that she could read them.

Charlene adjusted her glasses, and looked down at the first page of the survey. She read one of the questions at random.

_State your name and your relation to the suspect._

"Here's a pen," said Howard, clicking open one of his official looking executive desk pens and placing it beside the stack of papers.

Charlene took the pen and scribbled an answer on the lines printed below the question.

"_My name is Charlene Doofenshmirtz_," she wrote. "_And Heinz Doofensmirtz is my ex-husband_."

Charlene cringed. Why was her legal name still Doofenshmirtz? Who, keeps a name as ridiculously stupid and ugly as Doofenshmirts when they've been divorced for a half a decade? ...but perhaps this wasn't the best moment to contemplate such a question. Howard was staring at her, carefully observing her expressions and body language as she filled out the papers. Obviously this was part of the test, he would assess the honesty of her answers through careful observation, and make his decisions accordingly.

The questions two through twelve were about the nature of the relationship. How did Charlene feel about the relationship? Had Heinz been an abusive husband? Had he been unfaithful? Had Charlene been unfaithful? Did they have an open relationship? How was their sex life? Did they have any children together, and if so how was custody divided?

Charlene answered all of these questions as honestly as she could (except for the one about the kids). Heinz had never been violent or abusive, and he had never cheated on her. Charlene had cheated on him, however. (She still felt a bit bad about it, even though she was confident that he had no idea.) So why had the two of them slit up? That was a really good question, and Charlene was having some trouble answering it.

She thought for a moment and then began to write.

"_Heinz and I split up because of money issues_," she wrote. "_He has always been frivolous with our finances and that put our relationship under stress. He has stolen massive amounts of money from me by means of identity theft, and home invasion. Often he charges his outrages purchases to my credit card."_

"Jeese, I belong on the Jerry Springer Show," said Charlene aloud as she read over her answer.

She read the next question. It disturbed her.

_Does this individual have any recorded fears or phobias? If so, please list them._

Charlene's pen hesitated over edge of the paper. She didn't want to think about what this information would be used for, but the images kept coming into her mind. It was making her want to wretch. Poor Heinz...what ever he did to be a "threat to national security"...it couldn't have been bad enough to deserve this. She didn't want him to be hurt...but that was inevitable now, wasn't it?

"_This'll teach you to steal from _me _you son of a bitch_," thought Charlene viciously and she quickly listed all of Heinz's phobias on the lines printed below the question.


	4. Howard's Inspiration

This is the chapter that justifies the M rating so if that kind of thing disturbs you then you might want to skip it. Also, I heart Baljik. He's probably the funniest character in the show. So, whatever is said in this chapter, I want to make it clear that I am NOT a Baljik hater. Now on to the violence!

**Chapter 4**

Charlene left Howard's office after she had finished filling out the questionnaire. She had come to the government base with Howard in his car. That probably wasn't great for national security, but he had insisted. So now she would have to wait for him to finish his shift before he could drive her home.

Howard read through Charlene answers thoroughly, considered their implications, and then stapled them into a neat pile and returned them to his desk. He could see himself in the reflective surface of his computer screen: a large man with wide, muscular, shoulders, a thick neck and a strong jaw. His hair was brown and parted neatly to the side, an aspect of his appearance which stood out in stark contrast with the untidy bristles that where growing on his wide chin. A sadistic smirk spread over his face, and suddenly he looked dangerous. Nothing at all like the scholarly and meticulous government official that he had been a few moments before in the Presence of Charlene.

His wicked grin broadened. He had a plan for Doofenshmirtz.

...

Doofenshmirtz was still sitting against one of the walls, crunched into a terrified fetal position and weeping softly into his knees when he heard that ominous door swing open. He looked up, not bothering to wipe the tear tracks off of his cheeks as a large man in a government issued uniform and a suit case entered the room.

"I fucked your wife, Doofenshit," said the man as he open the suit case. There was a wicked gleam in his eye that was almost lecherous, as he removed a heavy steel hammer from the case's confines.

Heinz cowered pressing himself as closely as he could against the opposite wall. He found it statistically very unlikely that the man who was about to torture also happened to be fucking Charlene, but it was still quite insulting. And "Doofen_shit_"? Really? Yea, that was mature.

"I fucked your wife," he repeated as he grew closer wielding the steel weapon in one of his burly hands. He lifted it high as though prepared to bring it down hard on Heinz's forehead. "And you know what...I'm gonna do it again."

He brought the hammer down not on Heinz's right knee, shattering his knee cap and the bones on the hand that was resting there. Heinz screamed. Fresh tears spilled over his cheeks, and down his long nose.

"Headquarters has knowledge of your association with the terrorist organization known as LOVEMUFFIN," explained the man very professionally. His tone might have put Doofenshmirtz at ease if it wasn't for that insane smirk that was spreading slowly over the man's thin lips. "So your going to tell me exactly who they are and where they are...that is unless you want me to smash that ugly nose of yours with this hammer. It's your choice."

"O-OK," stuttered Doofensmirtz between terrified sobs. "OK not a p-problem. I'll tell you everything you want-Just please don' t hurt me anymore."

Quickly, Heinz began to reel off every member of the organization he could think of and their precise location. Despite his many flaws he did have an excellent memory. When he had finished he looked up at his tormentor, who was still standing over him wielding the weapon, he hoped very much that that insane glint in the man's eyes might have vanished, but it hadn't. If anything, it had intensified.

The man clocked Doofenshmirtz in the face with one of his large fists, blackening is left eye. Then he took hammer and cracked him in the nose with it.

Heinz bent his head forward cradling his bleeding face to his chest as he continued to sob.

"Tell the truth, Heinzy," the man taunted.

"I-I am telling the truth!" shouted Doofensmirtz desperately.

The man fiddled with the hammer a bit, twirling it in his large hands.

"Like the hammer, I got the idea from 'Pan's Laberith'," he said, placing it back inside of his briefcase and retrieving a second weapon. "And I got this idea from your ex-wife."

The man removed his hand from the suit cast. He was now holding a handful of sharp, metal, pins.

Heinz's eyes got very wide when he saw the man's newest weapons glinting ominously in the distance. He began to tremble violently.

"That's right, your a Trypanophobic, aren't you you damn German bastard," said the man his voice was virtually dripping with anticipation.

"How do you know that?," demanded Heinz. "Nobody knows that!...except for..."

The last word to that sentence was "_Charlene_", but Doofenshmirtz couldn't bring himself it say it. His heart was breaking...again. It had been broken many times, but it still hurt. Doofenshmirtz deteriorated further, and as the man approached him wielding the razor sharp pins he began to plead.

"Don't stick me," Heinz sobbed. "Please, please, please, don't stick me. I'll tell you ev-OW! OWWW!"

The man had pulled Doofenshmirtz's arm out and driven the silver spike into the crook of his elbow. Doofenshmirtz began to sheik but this time he didn't stop. The thing was lodged in his skin, actually embedded in his skin, around his veins and his muscles and his bones. A wave of nausea come over him and he struggled to stay conscious.

"OK OK!" shouted Heinz frantically. "I'll tell you what you who was really involved."

"Finally!" spat the man crossing his arms angrily. He crossed his arms.

"OK so...," Heinz mind began to race frantically, and suddenly he found that he was spewing out a bunch of random names of people that he had met in passing. "So...it was Bow Husten and Arty Cutcher and Candace Flynn and Marten Exaveir and...and...Baljik the Indian kid!"

"Baljik the Indian Kid?" the man repeated curiously saying the words "Baljik the Indian kid" as though it where some kind of gang title. "Tell me more about this 'Baljik the Indian Kid'."

"He is Indian and he is a kid," replied Heinz simply. "H-he's completely responsible for everything LOVEMUFFIN has done-He orchestrated everything!"

"Oh," replied the man, and he nodded and walked from the room.


	5. Blood Stains

My pals in the "How To Train Your Dragon" fandom are gonna be super pissed that I updated this story before I posted chapter five of "Sequeled". (Sorry guys, chapter five is coming. It'll get here eventually.) In any case, this is the final chapter of "The Doctor's Reform". I had it already written, so I figured I might as well post it. You know, just in case anyone is actually reading this. If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments send me a PM or post them in a review.

**Chapter 5**

Charlene had forgotten to return Howard's pen, and she knew how much he cared about the orderly arrangement of his office supplies, so she had come back to the room to return it...just in time to witness Howard bust Heinz in the nose with a steel hammer.

Charlene dropped the pen. She could hardly believe what she was witnessing. Blood was gushing from Heinz's nostrils, spilling out over his face like some ghastly faux-beard. And Howard was...was he laughing? Yes, she supposed she he must have been.

Suddenly, Howard turned, stalking toward the glass. Charlene nearly screamed as he came toward her, and an insane thought raced through her mind.

"_Can he see me?_"

For a moment it seemed as though he could. He grinned sadistically into the one way glass, before stooping to retrieve a new device from his leather-bound briefcase.

Charlene's heart was racing like a damn metronome on fast forward. What the hell was he holding? What was he going to do to Heinz?

Then she spotted the long, silver pins, and nearly choked. She was the one who had told Howard that Heinz was afraid of needles, wasn't she?

He had had some kind of a traumatic experience when he was as a young boy living in Europe. A young doctor (an intern presumably) had stuck him "at least a dozen times" trying to find a vein through witch he might administer a measles vaccination. He had made a point of mentioning they were also "were out of the blue band-aides with the little pelicans on them." Which didn't seem like a very important detail, but Heinz had a tendency to obsess over very unimportant things, and Charlene could understand why a thing like that might be important to a little boy.

"_Heinz is like a little boy_," she thought bitterly.

She tore her eyes from the dreadful events that where taking place beyond the one way glass, but the image was still in her mind. Though she was no longer looking at it, she saw the blood and the tears and the razor sharp silver pins glinting beneath the heat of the fluorescent lights. It was a vivid as a photograph, and yet the image no longer stirred horror or repulsion at the pit of her stomach. This feeling she had was not disgust. It was pity.

She noticed Howard come toward the glass again, kneeling to place the instruments back into his briefcase. He lifted the case off of the floor and began to walk toward the exit. Charlene began to panic. She didn't want Howard to find her here! She didn't want to look at him! She didn't want to speak to him! Damn it, she was terrified of him!

Without thinking, she dropped down out of sight, hiding herself swiftly behind a few large fed-ex boxes that where under the extra desk where Howard kept his extra office supplies.

A few moments later, Howard stepped into the room, looking quite pleased with himself. He set his briefcase beside him on his desk, fired up his computer, and began typing.

Charlene, couldn't believe what she had just done. Why was she, a grown woman, hiding behind a fed-ex box in her boyfriend's office? She couldn't exactly reverse it now. She couldn't just jump out and yell "surprise"! That would just make her look ridiculous...but there was something else too wasn't there?

Howard's keys.

They were lying on his desk just a few inches away from his brief case, mocking her with their closeness, and their false attainability. There had to be some way to distract Howard long enough to grab those keys. But how?

"Damn. Charlene still has my pen, doesn't she," said Howard to himself.

He got up out of his chair and walked through the door leaving his keys on the desk.

"I guess I better go find her," he grumbled from the other side of the door. She heard his footsteps fade into the distance.

Quickly, she darted to the desk, grabbed the keys, and locked the door behind him.

Her heart was racing now. What had she just done? She had to be out of her mind. So out of her mind that she was...that she was hearing the instrumental to "Furgalicious"? No that couldn't be right. She wasn't hallucinating it. It had to be a...a...

"...Cellphone," she whispered desperately.

Yes, it was definitely a cell phone...god damn! Of all the most ridiculously in opportune times for a cell phone to be ringing it had to be ringing right fricking now. She hoped to Christ that Howard wouldn't come back and try to answer it, and decided quickly that she wouldn't give him the opportunity. The noise was coming from a cardboard box on Howard's desk. She darted toward it, and pried it open with her meticulously manicured French tips.

The box seemed to contain a number of Heinz's personal effects, most notably a lab coat and a black turtle neck sweater. She lifted the articles of clothing from the box, shivering as she did so. Heinz's cloths always smelled like wiener schnitzels and motor oil.

She could see a red cell phone, lying at the bottom of the box, along with an assortment of other items that people generally carry around in their pockets. It was still vibrating, spewing out a very electronic sounding, cell-phoneish, impression of "Furgalicious". She grabbed it and flipped it open, breathing a sigh of relief as the thing faded to silence.

There was a text message on the screen.

"_OMG i m so BORED right now. I hope that u bust out of whatever asylum they put u in soon. Not that I miss u or anything. It's just that i m SO bored._"

Was a message from one of Heinz's evil associates? If so then they needed a serious grammar lesson. Another message appeared on the screen.

"_If u can read this please respond._"

"What the hell," said Charlene aloud as she began to text her reply. "I've already done one crazy thing today. Why not text a reply to a perfect stranger? I mean, I'm going to be fucking dead in a few minuets so what does it matter?"

She read over her message carefully.

"_Heinz is in trouble," _it read. She figured that would get the point across.

She pressed the send button, and waited a few moments for the stranger to reply.

The words "_Who are you_," popped up onto the screen.

"_A friend_," replied Charlene feverishly. "_Hienz is being held in a government facility. They hurt him real bad so I you where planning on breaking him out then please do it soon."_

The words "_Where is it?_" popped up on the screen.

Charlene quickly texted the location of the government building and pressed the send button. Oh, yes, she was certainly past the point of no return. She snapped the cellphone closed and placed it back at the bottom of the box placing Heinz's sweater and lab coat on top of it. The hung onto the lab coat a second longer, suddenly possessed by an insane urge to stuff it into her purse and take it with her. Reluctantly, she closed the box and set it back on the table in the place that it had been before. Then she unlocked the door, placed the key's back on Howard's desk, and exited the room.

"Aw, fuck it." she grumbled, as she turned and sprinted back to Howard's office, locking the door behind her once more.

She found the door separating the office from the room where Heinz was being kept, and managed to unlock it. The door swung open and she sprinted inside.

Heinz who had pressed himself into a corner was holding his bloodied kneecaps to his chest with his scrawny arms. Was still sniveling quietly, and rocking himself backward and forward. Charlene crouched down on the floor next to him, and put her arms around his quivering frame. His blood was spreading on her expensive white suit jacket, but she decided that she didn't care. She held him tighter.

"Ch...Charlene...," he sniffled opening his eyes to look at her.

His messy brown hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, and Charlene brushed it backward with her fingertips, clearing it away from his eyes, while at the same time noting the way that his hairline receded. A thought crossed her mind. A thought that disturbed her. They where certainly getting old.

"Charlene...I...I'm sorry," he wept, wrapping his bloodied fingers around the waist of her white suit jacket and leaving streaks of crimson along the fabric's crisp surface. "I...I was never there for you when you needed me...and I...I took advantage of your good nature and I..."

"Shh...," whispered Charlene tracing the tear tracks on his hollow cheeks with the tips of her fingers. She was careful not to scratch him with her long manicured nails. "It's OK Heinz."

"...Ow," he moaned, nuzzling his face against her dark hair, a crimson stain spread on the shoulder of Charlene's white suit jacket where he rested his head.

She turned her face toward him and, gently, kissed him on the cheek.

"It's OK Hienz," she repeated.

"No, It's my fault that I'm in this mess...that you're in this mess," Heinz continued to cry. "I shouldn't have tried to do the things that I did. I should have known that something like this would happen...but I can ch-change, Charlene. Really, I can. I'm too old for whole tri-state area thing, anyway. It's not like it was when I was a kid, back in Germany, sitting under that big tree in the back yard. Things are diffent now, and I'm an adult. Adults are responsible for their actions."

"I don't want you to change, Heinz," said Charlene, and she felt her own tears drip down her cheeks as she stared into his big, round, eyes for what was likely to be the last time. "I love you just the way you are. It's true that you can be a little childish and irrisponsible sometimes, but that's OK. You just need someone to...to take care of you...It should have been me, Heinz. I should have taken care of you. That was the promise I made when I married you. But it fell apart somehow."

She wiped the blood from his broken nose with the sleeve of her suit jacket, and kissed him, this time on the lips. She let her mouth part slightly as he explored the roof of her mouth with his tongue. He had always been a terrible kisser, but that didn't matter very much. She kissed him back passionately, running her fingers through his disheveled auburn hair as they embraced.

She pushed him away, staggering quickly to her feet as she removed her blood stained jacket and stuffed it into her perce.

"I'm sorry, Heinz," she said. "But I have to go...before someone finds out that I'm in here."

"Please don't go..." whimpered Heinz childishly. A fresh stream of tears dripped down his face. "P-please Charlene...I'm so afraid."

"I'm sorry," said Charlene, not looking back as she exited through the ominous, metal, door that was built into the wall next to the hideous mirror. "But I can't stay."

...

Two Days Later

Charlene sat on the couch in her living room, eating a box of pink-frosted Camp Fire Girl Cupcakes and watching TV. The news was on, but she wasn't listening to it. She was too busy watching Howard, who was asleep in one of the reclining chairs near the kitchen. He had proposed to her the previous day, and she had excepted. Not because she really wanted to marry him, but because she suspected that he knew about her braking into Heinz's cell. Maybe if she became his wife he would keep that under wraps. She was hoping that that would be the case.

Vanessa stode into the room, looking furious.

"Vanessa," said Charlene. "Your not in uniform."

"No shit I'm not in uniform," said Vanessa, and Charlene noticed with a pang of horror that she was no longer speaking with "Lupe's" accent.

"Lupe...," began Charlene watching Howard with terror, hoping to Christ that he wouldn't wake up.

"Lupe's dead," muttered Vanessa. "Boarder control chucked her back over the fence, and she shot herself...You're talking to Vanessa now."

"Vanessa, please..."

"How could you marry him?" Vanessa shouted. "After all of the horrible shit he did to dad?"

"What are you talking abou-"

"I know about what he did to dad. The government and all that shit, I got a call from the platypus and he told me everything. So don't go pretending like it didn't happen. I saw him. And he looks...he looks _terrible_."

"You saw him?" whispered Charlene desperately. She chose to ignore the bit about the Platypus. "When did you see him?"

"Just this morning," said Vanessa.

"Where did you see him?" asked Charlene.

"Well, wouldn't you like to know," grumbled Vanessa. "I'm not going to tell you where he is so that you can turn him into the police."

"...Did he escape?"

Vanessa tapped the top of the television with the black fingernail on her right hand.

"It's on the news," she said.

Charlene watched the television. She suffered through the sports section, and then a charming story about an old lady who decided that she wanted to make purses and accessories out of old bottle caps. Then she saw the story that Vanessa had been talking about. A "terrorist" had apparently escaped from a secure government facility.

A "file photo" of a man in a white lab coat flashed on the screen. The man was grinning stupidly and the background behind him was a sunset on the beach. It was certainly photograph of Heinz, a photograph that Charlene had taken herself on the final evening of their honeymoon. A news man in a red tied warned her that this man was "armed and extremely dangerous". That he had escaped the secure government facility without a trace, and taken the security cameras with him.

Charlene smiled as she bit into the last of her pink-frosted Camp Fire Girl Cupcakes, because she new that Heinz was safe. She didn't know how, but he was safe. She suspected that the recipient of her text message had something to do with it, and wondered vaguely who it might have been.

Never once did she suspect that the "person" who had arranged Doofenshmirtz's rescue was in fact a platypus.

END.


End file.
